Month: June 2017

Summary: Peter Pihos is a lecturing fellow in the Thompson Writing Program at Duke University. He teaches Writing 101 and does research in race issues, history, and sociology. Other than inspiring his students in the classroom, Peter spends his time reading Homeric epics with his young children, fighting for social change, and maintaining a hilarious twitter and interesting blog, both of which can be found on his website: https://peterpihos.org/. Juris: How would you use [the findings from your dissertation Policing, Race, and Politics in Chicago] to advise policymakers in Chicago or other cities to grapple with institutional racism such as that which often appears in urban police forces? Peter Pihos: I’m not much for advice, but it seems like one thing is that it’s hard to understand stories of crime and policing apart from the broader story of political economy and really understanding where the jobs have gone and where […]

What do companies like Google and Apple have in common? They both love a “Double Irish with a Dutch Sandwich.” As appetizing as that may sound, it is actually a form of legally-permitted tax avoidance. Through a combination of legal loopholes and financial border-hopping, Google and Apple have lowered their collective tax contribution by just under $20 billion in 2015 alone. Here’s how it works: Large companies like Google and Apple minimize their tax burdens by strategically funneling money into offshore tax havens through “shell companies” – corporate sub-entities used strictly as vehicles for transnational capital shifts. Take Apple, for example. “Apple Ireland,” a shell company owned by the U.S. tech giant, sells iPhones to another shell company, “Apple Netherlands,” which, in turn, sells the product to the customer. The Dutch franchise then collects revenue from the sale but pays as much as possible back to the Irish shell company […]